Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to announce a presentation of major works from the 1960s by Anthony Caro and Kenneth Noland in the gallery’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2010. Anthony Caro’s pioneering sculpture ranks among the most important in the field and continues to influence generations of sculptors. Kenneth Noland was among the most influential Post-War abstract artists and one of the central figures of Color Field painting. This focused exhibition shows the formal affinities between these leading figures of 20th Century art.
Caro (b. 1924) and Noland (1924-2010) met in 1959 and were lifelong friends. Their dialogue about art signaled a turning point for both their work. Indeed, Caro frequently credits Noland with inspiring many of his theories about his sculpture and artistic practice. As art historian Michael Fried wrote in 1968, there is “a point of deep affinity between” Caro works of the 1960s and “the superb paintings [of]… Kenneth Noland’s… in which the lateral extension of the canvas and its colors accomplished, among other things, an unexpected liberation from the constrictions of the picture-shape.”
The presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach will feature one of Caro’s pivotal sculptures, “Cadence,” 1968-72, as well as several table pieces. With its emphatic abstraction, grounded horizontality and cantilevered wings, “Cadence” is one of the most accomplished large-scale masterpieces from Caro’s pioneering early period.
Also on view will be a selection of Stripe paintings by Noland from the 1960s. The artist’s Stripe paintings are reductive investigations into shape, color and form. Noland said, “I wanted to have color be the origin of the painting. I was trying to neutralize the layout, the shape, the composition. I wanted to make color the generating force.” Noland began this series in the late 1960s and revisited the stripe motif in 2003 – works from 2003 will also be on view at the stand.
